Habitat

I’d like to tell you about the country, the land that the wild horses live in. They live in the Ghost forest. It’s actually north of Calgary. It’s a wild country, open, with no sign of buildings, only the odd Indian Paintbrush nodding in the wind. This is the marshland of the wild horses. It’s wet, it freezes in winter. And this is springtime coming to this marshland. The temperatures change, and the horses are moving through the mist, waiting for the green grasses of spring. But what are the other animals that share this marshland with the wild horses? There are many of them in here, and there are different ones you see in different seasons.

When we look at a wild landscape that is truly wild, that hasn’t been interfered with by humans, we have a lot of factors that come into play of what contributes to the healthy biodiversity of the area. Biodiversity in my mind is when you have a piece a landscape that supports a variety of species of flora and fauna – wildlife and plants – that can continue to thrive in each others’ company.

It is early spring as I mentioned. This is the red winged blackbird, and it’s going to give its mating call. It’s looking for its female. Now we’re moving into the wetter part of the marshland, and that is a little muskrat lodge that is just poking out of the water. And here’s a lovely little muskrat – see that tail wiggling? It’s a rudder, and that’s how they propel themselves through the water. It’s got a friend in here somewhere, probably its mate.  And they’re just scouting out the area in total peace. Nothing is bothering them.

Our Canada Goose is a true indicator of a healthy marshland. They’re feeding on the sedges and the mosses. They mate, and there’s a lovely little clutch of goslings. A Roughed Grouse. She’s got some babies nearby. She’s trying to lead us away from them. This is later in the spring now. I never did find those little babies, and I didn’t want to disturb them. A little woodpecker in a tree. Can you see it? They’re so well camouflaged. This bird is an astonishing bird. It’s the Sandhill Crane in its red phase. They’re endangered, and every year they stop in the marsh.

“The question of wild horse habitat that I’m studying is about a marshland” begins Maureen Enns. And this marshland supports Sandhill Cranes going through in the spring, the owls that we know in Alberta, the Grizzly bear, the wolves – there are two packs in there.

I’m looking at a tree that is a rub tree for Grizzly Bears, and there’s the grizzly bear’s hair. So I know that the grizzlies use this country of the wild horses as well. And look at this…we’ve found a family of grizzlies. There’s the small one, and it’s about three months old, and its running to catch up with its mother. And there are a couple of other cubs with this mother. She’s a beautiful bear, and she comes through this country of the wild horses I think every year. She’s going to lead those young babies off. She’s a little concerned about my presence, but not agitated. She’s fairly comfortable around me, I’ve been talking to her. And look at the little guy catching up.

This is a wild horse skull. I just found it up in the bush here. It could be it was killed by a wolf. It’s hard to say. This is big wolf. There’s a big alpha male in here I’ve spotted a couple of times, a big black one. It looks like he’s running alone, or he’s out hunting. And this is a little coyote’s track. So the difference in the size, and the coyote is coming this way – probably yesterday. This one was made sometime this morning, because it snowed all last night. You can tell it’s a wolf by this pad here, and you always get the two toes with the claws pointing forward right there, and you see the drag through the snow.

Coming along Salter Ridge this morning, we’re backtracking cougar tracks from a few days ago that were left in the snow. And off to the side, their favourite prey species – fresh deer tracks as well.

The salt is set up in here before they will set the gate to spring shut on them, so they get used to walking in and out. Once the trapper knows that they are coming in and out, he’ll set this gate to the rock salt. So when they chew on it, it will spring the gate shut behind them. He might not get in here for a couple of days, so he’s situated his trap where there’s a little bit of a spring coming through. The horses are trapped, but get some water until he can get in here. That might be four or five days. The horses are going to be pretty weak, there’s no feed. But that’s desirable. He’s going to rope them and haul them out behind him on his saddlehorse and sell them – either for meat, or if they’re young, maybe he’ll try to break them. There’s a set number he’s allowed to take out, but it’s questionable how many are actually taken.

These wild horses I’m studying live in a marshland, and some very old growth forest. The typical mature where undisturbed the trees get old, die, fall down, and very, very slowly turn back into soil. Old growth spruce that escaped the fires in the earlier part of the century and continue to grow and mature. Horses love it in here for cover at times. There’s a big seep coming through here, lots of water to help the trees grow. So a combination of avoiding the fire, having extra moisture. This is the kind of material that loggers would love to get at, it’s the most valuable timber in the valley. The horses have helped to fertilize it to make these forests grow.

This marshland is the sponge of the watershed of Calgary. Anyone who studies riparian health – which is the health of wet areas that hold back water so it doesn’t just run off and end up in the ocean without providing the water we need in Calgary – will understand that we need deep roots to hold back water. And so horses go into this marshland in the winter, when it’s frozen, and it’s their meadow of hay that was left – they don’t like going out and sinking into it in the summer, because then they are more susceptible to predation when they sink in. So they fertilize that marshland with horse manure, which we all know grows good gardens. And those roots go down deeper and deeper into that marsh.

And additionally, I’m seeing evidence that some really big spruce and pine are growing where the horses haul out to get out of the flies in the summer. And so now, we’ve got even deeper roots at the edge of that marshland from those big spruce and pine, and they’re bigger than anything else around. They’re holding back that water, and this in the future is going to be an important consideration for the city of Calgary for water. So do we want to spend billions of dollars on water, or are we going to take care of our marshlands? The wild horse is playing a big role and contributing to the biodiversity.

The area where I’m studying these wild horses – and I’m purposely not telling where that is, because there is such a unique population – is slated for logging. The current practice in this area in Alberta is block cut logging. And we can see it in any area aerial photograph of the area. They’re square blocks with lots of access roads. And these access roads are not put back in any form of natural state. They’re just left there for further exploration by recreational users, even though they are not supposed to, they definitely do. So what is appropriate in the logging practice that will increase the biodiversity? What will bring in the other animals that can interface with the cattle using that grazing lease? What is appropriate logging practice for this area?

This old growth forest that is much of Alberta’s eastern slopes needs to be dealt with and managed to increase biodiversity. Right now, a lot of it, there’s squirrels and mice living in there, there’s moss underneath. Here’s the place for that, and how much do you want to encourage to grow and thrive in terms of wildlife? How can a logging company, which is probably desperate for more funds right now – because of what’s happened to the logging industry in Canada – how can they be expected to spend more money to do a better job on cleaning up the slash, putting back the roads they used to access it? Perhaps logging in winter, would that be cheaper, or more costly? What are the incentives today for logging companies? I think that has to be looked at if we’re going to look at a landscape like here I’m seeing these wild horses. It would increase the biodiversity of the area. What can happen with the logging to make that better for the rancher, and for the wildlife in there? The current practice is not going to do it.

The flowers in the springtime of this marshland are unbelievable. Even the dandelion, considered a weed, is important to all these animals. The horses feed on it, its favourite bear food. The cattle roam this country too, it’s a grazing lease for the ranchers. Wild horses and cattle living in balance, when the wild horses aren’t too big in number.

The area that I’ve been going into over the last three years has changed in that time period, in terms of human impact. And it breaks my heart see it. When I first started going in three years ago, there was the cattle in there in the summer; the local rancher was taking care of the riparian health of his waterways with electric fencing. And really, the ranchers were the stewards of the land. They treated it like the land they owned, not their lease land, and they cared for it. They allowed people to go in when they asked.

Today, that rancher is saying, “I can’t tell you whether you can go or not, it’s public land.” And somehow that has shifted everything. And I think we need to re-examine that question of who are the stewards of the land? Do we as the public have enough information to know about the impact we’re having on the land?

So what have I seen changed in the landscape in three years? I’ve seen, in three years, the first legal use of off-highway vehicles in the area permitted on this grazier’s land. And as soon as you do that, the old cow trails are turned into a huge wallow of mud, because this is a marshland. So I ask the question, was this the best place to allow these off highway vehicles legal access?

Hence a track vehicle like this one crosses the marshland; it encourages others to cross it. And this is Calgary’s watershed. What happens? The water is no longer retained by the sponge of the watershed, it’s stirred up and it evaporates. And that damage doesn’t go away. It’s into winter, and the damage is frozen in place, plants killed below that ice. The tracks ill be there for years to come.

So what do we do about that use for off-highway vehicles? I support their use, but maybe we need to rethink where they can go, so there is less impact, and it does not interfere with the health of the entire ecosystem.